“Smiter of the High and Mighty”

Monthly Archives: June 2019

Hats off to our local Green Party for finding such an ORDINARY MAN OF THE PEOPLE to be their mayoral candidate next year. Please step forward Sandy Hore-Ruthven “Bufton-Tufton”, who, it says here, “comes from a family which OWNS THE PICTURESQUE NORTH DEVON VILLAGE OF CLOVELLY”. Whose family doesn’t own a picturesque village, losers?

Bufton Tufton’s grandfather was the dashing Colonel Malise Hore-Ruthven, 3RD SON OF THE 8TH LORD OF RUTHVEN, who after schooling at Wellington College (George Ferguson’s alma mater) joined the Blackwatch for a little murderous fun in the colonies, some thrillingly brutal outings against the Boer and, not least, a crack at the Hun in the First World War. When he finally retired from SHOOTING foreigners, Malise took the post of Secretary to the Governor-General of South Africa where he could TORTURE them instead. Reassuringly, the Colonel only ever listed the one hobby – ‘hunting’ – in Who’s Who?

Bufton-Tufton’s daddy, James, took a slightly different tack to his twirly moustachioed soldier-adventurer father and after ESTABLISHMENT BRAINWASHING at Wellington and Oxford, he enlisted in ‘Moral Re-Armament’. A campaign of “MORAL AND SPIRITUAL REARMAMENT” aimed at the colonies and with ties to British Intelligence. The group was launched by American, Frank Buchan who once said, “I THANK HEAVEN FOR A MAN LIKE ADOLF HITLER, who built a front-line of defence against the anti-Christ of Communism’. Celebrity members of this shower included Mary Whitehouse.

Actor Glenn Close, whose father was closely involved in Moral Re-Armament when she was a child, bluntly describes the operation as “A RIGHT-WING RELIGIOUS CULT“. Although to give it more of a secular, technocratic feel and, possibly, to help distract from Buchan’s presence at the NUREMBURG RALLIES, it was rebranded Initiatives of Change in 2001 and daddy, James Hore-Ruthven, was a trustee until his death in 2011.

No surprises, then, that in 2002 Bufton-Tufton, who carefully hides his schooling, got a very HELPFUL HAND-UP from his upper class crackpot daddy when he got the posh sounding job of ’RECONCILLIATION COORDINATOR SOMALIA AND HORN OF AFRICA’ for, er, Initiatives of Change! Not bad for someone who had previously been a lowly volunteer coordinator for Young Bristol!

On his return in 2006 from this peculiar reinvention of the traditional family profession of REACTIONARY COLONIAL THUG, Bufton-Tufton was appointed Chief Exec of the Creative Youth Network, a charity that specialises in cut price bids for the small local authority budgets now available for the tiny amounts of outsourced youth work happening in the city.

It’s yet to be confirmed if Panjandrum Bufton-Tufton will be donning traditional garb to come in peace to parlay in the Asda Bemmie car park with the natives of south Bristol to warn them of the “ANTI-CHRIST OF COMMUNISM” and “MORAL BOLSHEVISM“. Or if he’ll go on to explain to the great unwashed that economic recession “is God’s way of reminding us to change our temperament and our environment”.

The usual suspects in my congregation have now started making
sub-optimal noise about my infrequent trips to the United States to bear
witness alongside my mentor, the Texan psychotic preacher and notorious
anti-communist homophobe, the Pastor Righteous Loon. These visits to the Pastor
Loon’s southern California ranch with the two swimming pools (one with an
impressive outdoor bar area), a gym, a state-of-the-art home cinema and, of
course, the breathtaking Soft Porn Renaissance Chapel styled by Jeff
Koons are vitally important prayer retreats. Yes, I’m often accompanied by my
communications specialist Mr Slocombe and the slightly nutty Miss Molano, our
church’s Faith Advisor, and, yes, some mainly harmless mildly satanic practices
led by Pastor Loon and very enthusiastically embraced by Miss Molano do
sometimes occur. All that is happening, however, is that myself and your senior
church leaders are taking the opportunity, just four or five times a year, to
get an ecumenical buff and a spiritual replenish. All to better deliver your
religious needs at St Marvin’s. What is there to complain about here?

Some of you have raised the issue of Pastor Loon’s attitude to abortion after
that unfortunate report in the Washington Post last month regarding his widely
misinterpreted ‘genocidal holocaust’ remarks. Isn’t it easy for journalists to
take the complex ideas underpinning our faith, remove any context and then
twist our wise words so that they become what they may not mean? But let me
assure you that as your Reverend and a Christian I remain substantially
committed to an idea of abortion as practice. Can I be any more unequivocal
than that? Some of you have also queried aspects of the Reverend Loon’s
lifestyle such as his five wives, his private jet, his close links to the arms
trade and his recent claim that “Climate change is a Jewish-Communist plot”.
To quote Pastor Loon, “I’m Only My Brother’s Keeper If My Brother Is My
Sheep” and Pastor Loon is clearly not a sheep. So what have his personal
lifestyle choices got to do with me? Please, let’s not covet thy neighbours’
lives. Let’s instead live our simple lives better unto the glory of god.

Finally, I have received some negative comments regarding the Pastor Loon’s
fantastic recent book “How Big Money and the Markets Can Move
Mountains”, especially, his claim that Jesus has risen and walks among us
in the form of the derivatives markets, fractional reserve banking and high
levels of consumer debt. Let’s face it, I’m no economist and you’re certainly
no economist so how can we possibly sit in judgement on the Pastor’s new and
exciting ‘Corporate Free Market Theology’ that’s seizing headlines and transforming
our religious communities? “Judge not and you will not be judged,” as
the Pastor preached to me recently. The wisest of wise words from the wisest of
the wise. Amen.

News reaches The BRISTOLIAN that the Reverend’s council has quietly put a part of Castle Park on the market. The council’s parks department depot, which lies within the boundary of the park, is UP FOR SALE and nine developers visited the site on 7 June to measure up this prime city centre site for luxury flats.

The strategy being pursued by the council to cash in big time by disposing of our park is becoming clear. With Merchant Venturers Deeley Freed holding a development option and biding their time to grab more land at St Mary-Le-Port at the west end of the park, the council is now opening up the east end of the site for development. There’s A PINCER MOVEMENT TO BUILD ON OUR PARK!

Does anyone really believe that expensive bridge between the park and the old Courage Brewery where Channel 4 ponces are moving in to SNOOTY OFFICES soon was ever for the benefit of park users? Of course not. It’s for the wealthy to cross from one well-appointed luxury mixed-use development to another. The only playground we’ll be left with in Castle Park will be a PLAYGROUND FOR THE RICH.

Details of what will happen to the Castle Park depot are, naturally, TOP SECRET and therefore sketchy. However, expect another development based around luxury flats, open plan commercial space for ‘creatives’ and a few expensive food outlets. A further LAND GRAB from any potential developer of the depot also will be inevitable as they will claim they need more park land to make their development “VIABLE“.

With our libraries “SAVED” until next year after the mayoral election, the Reverend’s trusty deputy, Asher “The Slasher” Craig has embarked on another bloody “CONVERSATION” about libraries in the city.

The focus this time around has been on talking to PEOPLE
WHO DON’T USE LIBRARIES. Presumably on the basis that, maybe, they’ll be
more sympathetic to The Slasher unloading a prized public service on to
volunteers than our organised and informed local LIBRARY CAMPAIGNERS AND
SUPPORTERS?

The Slasher, not keen on libraries and not too bothered about making wild
remarks regarding them either, has not passed up the opportunity to wade into
this conversation herself. Brazenly announcing to the press, “one of the
issues in our city is we have TOO MANY ASSETS, TOO MANY BUILDINGS IN
OUR PUBLIC SECTOR.”

Really? And how many businesses have you ever heard complaining that they have
“TOO MANY ASSETS“? Is the Slasher, by any chance, seeking to
dispose of some more community-based assets and any service they might contain
to fund some more AIMLESS VANITY PROJECTS at College Green?

The Reverend, too, has joined “the conversation”. In response to a
question at a Full Council meeting, he announced, “THERE IS NO DOUBT
THE LIBRARY MODEL IS NOT FIT FOR THE 21ST CENTURY“. Who says? As this
claim appears despite A LACK OF ANY RECORDED EVIDENCE held by the
council of residents wanting change to our libraries, even after two
consultations and a report costing £40k.

Is the Labour Party arranging to wreck our library service regardless of what
we think?

More heat than light generated last month when councillors were finally allowed to publicly discuss the absurd £100K PAYOUT handed to Reverend Rees’s failed Chief Executive, Anna “Big Wedge” Klonowski in September 2017. The Reverend alleged at the time that Big Wedge resigned for “FAMILY REASONS” without notice and so she would not normally be entitled to any money whatsoever.

Councillors bombarded the Reverend with questions after council auditors, BDO, published a partial, if DAMNING, report on the affair. However, the questions were batted away by an embattled Mayor with TWO HALF-TRUTH EXCUSES: that there were no formal processes to follow for senior officer departures and that his legal advice said the pay-off was “contractural”.

NEITHER EXCUSE HOLDS WATER. The process for senior officer departures appears in the annual Pay Policy Statement and plenty of pay-offs have been approved by the HR Committee of councillors in the past. Under questioning the Reverend REFUSED to explain why this did not happen in this case beyond claiming that there was “NO PROCESS” to follow.

Meanwhile, the legal advice the Reverend relied on, labelled as “SURPRISING” by the auditors, remains shrouded in mystery. Despite demands by councillors, the Reverend WOULDN’T EXPLAIN why he didn’t get this advice through his legal department. He also POINT-BLANK REFUSED to release the request for this advice, the actual advice or, even, which of two firms of lawyers named in the BDO report provided the hookie information. The Reverend insisted that this was “THE LAW“.

A claim that is NOT TRUE. While the law allows legal advice provided to local authorities to remain confidential if they choose, it does not prevent them publishing it if they want to. Why is the Reverend SCARED SHITLESS of publishing anything to do with the advice he received or the circumstances surrounding it?

The only nugget of information the Reverend released during his pointless session with councillors were the names of the two chief officers advising him on this generous payout – “JACQUIE AND NICKY“.

Step forward Jacquie “You’re Fired!”
McGeachie – a former Tesco HR, now a local authority interim manager trading as
Jacquie McGeachie HR Consulting Ltd, charging £1,000 a day – and Nicky
“Chocolate” Beardmore, a local authority management failure from
Shropshire APPOINTED BY THE REVEREND as interim Head of Paid Service on
£1,200 a day in the autumn of 2017.

The involvement of McGeachie is especially intriguing as she was a COLLEAGUE
of Big Wedge’s – then trading as Elka Solutions Ltd – in Barnet in 2014 and Big
Wedge personally brought Jacquie McGeachie HR Consulting Ltd to Bristol when
she became Chief Exec in early 2017. It then looks as if McGeachie RETURNED
A HIGH-ROLLING FAVOUR by signing over a six-figure sum of public money to
Big Wedge as she departed.

After a FRUITLESS COUPLE OF HOURS querying the pay-off, councillors
agreed that the three-quarters of the auditor’s report not published could be
debated in public at the Audit and HR committees and again at Full Council.

We think this is pointless. Isn’t it time Inspector Knacker looked into how
Big Wedge ended up with £100k of public money in her personal bank account?

Efforts by the Reverend Rees and his point man ‘Slo’ Kevin Slocombe to create their own new season of THE WEST WING up on the third floor of the Counts Louse brings predictable results.

Having EXPANDED the Mayoral Office budget to the best
part of £1MILLION A YEAR and styled themselves as fast talking power
dressing power players who get things done, their efforts to slickly command
and control a council of 7,000 employees SPENDING A BUDGET OF A BILLION
is more Jedward than Jed Bartlet.

The latest MAYORAL FAILURE finds the Reverend unable to get a simple
‘corrective’ brass plaque attached to the statue of Colston in the Centre. This
might be because following the original mayoral decree for a plaque, there was NO
MEANS to communicate back to the Mayor or his team what was going on with a
project easily highjacked by the Merchant Venturers from council officers.

Similar problems have haunted the Reverend’s response to
institutional racism at the council where the HR officers and managers
responsible for the problem have filled any MANAGEMENT VACUUM by stepping
in to solve their own problem to suit themselves.

The most recent fiasco followed the removal of valuable 1930s street lamps from
south Bristol to leafy Stoke Bishop. “THIS DOESN’T HAPPEN,”
insisted Slo Kev on Twitter. “Any street lamps removed are used for spare
parts only,” he explained. Alas, within minutes of Slo Kev’s claim, a
photo appeared on Twitter of a newly installed street lamp from south Bristol
in Stoke Bishop!

The obvious solution of appointing one of 40-odd Labour councillors to oversee
something like the plaque project through to completion has been OVERLOOKED
by both the Reverend and Slo Kev. Both naively believing they can achieve
anything at the council, no matter how minor, by SWAGGERING COMMAND or LENGTHY
PRESS RELEASE fired out from the third floor executive suite.

In reality simple projects are FAILING and poor decisions are MULTIPLYING
due to the Reverend’s West Wing fantasy. There’s a bottleneck at the top of the
council. Too many issues for too few mayoral staff to cope with and council
officers end up running the show with little oversight. Labour councillors,
meanwhile, the natural workforce to force Labour policy through a recalcitrant
council, hang about IDLE, BORED and IGNORED.

The Reverend caused a minor scandal at a recent council meeting by appearing to ATTACK THE NHS when he responded to a petition from a couple of junior doctors DEMANDING ACTION on air pollution in the city.

He told the pair, “the NHS generates FIVE PER CENT OF ALL
ROAD JOURNEYS IN THIS COUNTRY. This is from the NHS’s own numbers. They
contribute 735 deaths through air pollution, they cost us 8,844 life years,
contributing 85 deaths and 772 major injuries, and they create
£650million-worth of demand on NHS services.”

The Reverend, presumably, is referring to such PLANET DESTROYING SPONGERS
as health visitors, community nurses and occupational therapists. All NHS
workers who regularly visit people in their homes to support, often complex, PHYSICAL
AND MENTAL HEALTH NEEDS. What’s the Reverend proposing here? That, in
future, NHS patients crawl to their nearest health centre for treatment to
reduce pollution?

If the Reverend’s concerned about the amount of car journeys made by public
sector organisations, he could start NEARER TO HOME. How many car
journeys are his adult care workers, social workers and OTs making? Is it
significantly LESS THAN THIS ALLEGED FIVE PER CENT OF TRAFFIC courtesy
of the NHS on our local roads? Maybe the Reverend could start targeting some of
his own sick, dying and vulnerable and tell them to get on their bikes to lower
the city’s pollution levels?

Alternatively, he could start with all those FREE PARKING SPACES he
dishes out to fit and healthy COUNCILLORS and SENIOR BOSSES at
the Council House. They all seem intensely relaxed about poisoning the rest of
us because they can’t be arsed to walk, ride a bike or take a bus.

Unison are now officially IN DISPUTE with Avon and Wiltshire Partnership (AWP) mental health trust over a proposed ‘admin review’ (BRISTOLIAN #48 ). The review will see over 70 jobs cut or downgraded by a trust whose main concern is CLEARING A DEFICIT rather than CARING for patients.

AWP is a struggling mental health trust and losing scores of skilled administrators will pile MORE PRESSURE ON FRONTLINE STAFF already over-burdened with heavy workloads. Unison are gearing up for a strike ballot but, without support from outside the trust, any strike WILL FAIL.

Bristol Care Workers Network (BCWN) are supporting the WORKERS AND RANK-AND-FILE UNISON MEMBERS fighting to protect their jobs and public services at AWP. BCWN have been active in spreading AWARENESS about the dispute and AGITATING among the affected staff to vote in favour when a strike ballot finally happens.

BCWN say, “we are especially keen to speak to any workers in AWP (whether you are a Unison member or not) who are worried about the job cuts and who want to TAKE A STAND. We want to build a GRASSROOTS MOVEMENT within the trust; to SUPPORT THE STRIKE, to KEEP THE PRESSURE ON UNISON to do right by us and to TAKE OVER THE STRUGGLE if and when Unison let us down.”

Our attention has been drawn to THE BIZARRE CONDUCT of Saida “Ding-Dong” Bello, the chair of Bristol City Council’s BMEG group, which is supposed to represent the interests of the council’s long-suffering black employees. Such as the ones who had to go and WHISTLEBLOW to the Nazi Post in January to get heard.

When not BMEGing for the council, Ding-Dong Bello is a part time lawyer at the council and also a PART-TIME JUDGE sitting on the Valuation Tribunal for England. So the establishment is strong in this one.

Before her colleagues’ brave appearance in the Nazi Post complaining about a cover-up of ENDEMIC RACIST BULLYING at the council, we hear Ding Dong Bello fired off a FURIOUS ROUND ROBIN EMAIL to members of BMEG. “It has come to my attention that the issue of ongoing complaints has been leaked inappropriately to the press and that it is due to be printed in the near future,” she ranted.

“This behaviour is CONTRARY to our five
organisational values of ownership, respect, curious, collaborative and
dedicated,” she raved at whistleblowers LEGALLY ENTITLED TO PROTECTION
from the council.

Presumably, then, BULLYING black workers, FAILING to investigate
their complaints properly and then UNLAWFULLY insinuating they’re
breaching their contract of employment by complaining is a fine example of
these amazing new organisational values in action? In the circumstances, the
response by the whistleblowers to Bello’s attempt to bully and threaten them
was remarkably COOL and SANGUINE.

“Her comments have not been sanctioned by the group as a whole,”
they pointedly observed

Bad news for the Reverend’s housing supremo Paul “Wolfie” Smith as his dream to turn the former Maes Knoll Elderly People’s home at Hengrove into AN OASIS OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING is scuppered by Sovereign Housing Association.

We note with interest from Sovereign’s website that they have new 3-bed “AFFORDABLE” homes on the site up for sale for £118,800 “BASED ON PURCHASING A 40% SHARE“. This means Sovereign are valuing a whole home at a less than affordable price of £295k. At least £50k MORE than any 3-bed home in the immediate vicinity!

Also, according to press reports, just 15 homes in this new development are AFFORDABLE, which, if we assume each has the average Bristol household occupancy of 2.3 people, means they will house 35 PEOPLE in need of affordable or social housing. A NET DECLINE IN SOCIAL AND AFFORDABLE PROVISION on the site, which used to provide a home for 40 ELDERLY PEOPLE at social rent.

There is, however, a large increase in expensive private housing for profit on what used to be our plot of land.